Democracy’s Downside

You can’t pump your own gas (seems silly, but on a cold wet morning, you’re grateful)

We vote by mail

I really like the last one, voting by mail. It means that I can vote as soon as I get my ballot. I usually get my ballot, look it over, do 2-3 days of research if needed and then vote. This means that I get to ignore up to a month’s worth of advertisements, pollsters, debates on public radio, etc. All of those things I can mentally ignore knowing that any influence they may have on my decision is irrelevant at that time.

The problem is the postal service still delivers all kinds of election propaganda that I can’t just ignore. A lot of money and resources go into the stuff I get in the mail every day during election season and all I’m going to do with it is recycle it.

Eventually campaigns and voters will figure out it makes the most sense to stick to digital marketing. Until that happens, we need a system to opt out of election material after we’ve voted.

I’m sure this would break all kinds of privacy issues, but election boards need to track and identify who has already voted and make these lists available as a No More Contact list. Every candidate or group with a ballot initiative would be required to subscribe to this list and filter their mailings against it.